Brevity Is the Soul

Of the Manuscript

Welcome to a brief Shelf Life. Today’s Shelf Life is brief because it’s coming your way while I’m away from home on business travel, which means I wrote it while preparing for business travel—tying up loose ends at home, trying on all my clothes, packing the few that fit, and so on.

This is also a contradictory Shelf Life: In Fashions and Fictions, I wrote about a precept I still stand by, which is that concise, lean writing is not inherently better than other types. I don’t believe Hemingway is the ruler against which we must all be measured. I don’t believe there is one type of prose styling that is better than any other, inherently. I do believe there is one type that is inherently worse than all others, which is stream-of-consciousness. I’m sorry, James Joyce. I just don’t like your fiction. It’s me: I’m afraid of Virginia Woolf.

I don’t believe that using fewer words is inherently better, when writing fiction, than using more. In terms of prose styling, I think mixing shorter, simpler sentences with longer, more-complex ones is one of many tools we use to keep readers engaged in the story. Most things are better in moderation. Writing concisely all the time is like showing instead of telling all the time—there’s a place and time for showing, and a place and time for telling. “Show don’t tell” is advice for writers who use too much exposition; it’s not overall guidance for all writing, all the time.

Likewise, there’s a place and time for concise, lean, spare, brief writing. Writing that doesn’t use four adjectives—perhaps it gets by with one or even none. Writing that omits adverbs. Writing without using the word that. Today’s Shelf Life is on the merits of this type of writing, and when and how to use it.

I’m not good at brief writing. I like words too much. I want to use them all, as often as possible. That said, I am working on my concise writing skill so I can use it when I need it: When writing emails, for other business writing, when writing instructional nonfiction, and when concise writing makes sense in fiction.

I write flash and short fiction more than I write longform fiction, so every word counts. Submission word count limits are strict and I don’t want to write myself out of lucrative markets. Working toward writing briefer short fiction is critical to my publishing success, so I’ve been practicing. Following is some of what I’ve learned.

First, and maybe most important: When I am in drafting mode, I don’t edit myself. I don’t limit words or strive for economy of thought or language. If I know there will be future drafts, revisions, and edits, then in the first draft I put in all the thoughts and all the words. It’s not called the vomit pass for nothing. Spew all over the page.

If you’re gonna spew, spew into this. *offers Word document*

While drafting, I want to capture all my thoughts and idea so I don’t miss anything good. During revision I thresh the text. Hit it with a heavy flail to separate the grain from the chaff. The flail is my red pen. Imposing brevity happens during revision; during the later phases of revision, to be specific. After I’ve ironed out the big-picture issues but before I turn to proofing, I go through the text and find opportunities to be briefer.

Look for Multiple Words Standing in for One

For starters, consider this sentence:

We are going to help you learn all about project management.

There are several places in this sentence where multiple words are doing the work of one. For instance, “are going to” in this case can be replaced by “will” without altering the meaning of the sentence:

We will help you learn all about project management.

Second: What does it mean to “help [someone] learn”? We have a word for that: Teach.

We will teach you all about project management.

Third: Does “all about” mean anything different than “about” in this case? If you truly mean we will teach you everything about project management then say everything. Otherwise, you can omit “all” entirely:

We will teach you about project management.

This last version says the same thing as the original sentence, but uses 7 words instead of 11.

Another common scenario in which multiple words stand in for one is when the writer uses an -ly adjective, or “very,” to augment an adjective. 

She was very happy. → She was ecstatic.
The situation was deadly serious. → The situation was dire.
We are truly sorry about the trouble. → We regret the trouble.

You can also keep an eye out for phrase “going to” to describe an action you intend to do in the future. This can often be expressed in a clearer way that uses fewer words:

We are going to school tomorrow. → We have school tomorrow.
I am going to spend way too much money. → I’ll spend way too much money.
She is going to be sorry she missed out. → She’ll regret missing out.

The last example is less than half as long as the sentence from which it was carved.

Look for Text That Doesn’t Say Anything 

Everyone writes a nothingburger from time to time. There’s no shame in writing one. The shame is in letting a nothingburger get past revision and editing and out the door. But what do I mean by a nothingburger?

I mean text that doesn’t say anything. This could mean a word or phrase that is useless in a sentence, for instance:

Rain or shine, we will still be there, just like always.

“Still,” in that sentence, doesn’t tell the reader anything that “will be there” isn’t.

This could mean a useless phrase in a paragraph. I am especially prone to these. Here’s an example:

Here’s the thing: I use too many words.

“Here’s the thing” is a nothingburger. I could just skip ahead and tell you the thing. To paraphrase Herb Kazzaz from Bojack Horseman, “You don’t have to introduce the idea that there’s going to be a thing.” Some other nothingburger phrases include “all this is to say,” “in this instance,” and “subsequently.” You never, or almost never, need these words to say what you’re trying to say.

You may find you have nothingburger sentences or even whole nothingburger scenes, sections, or chapters. This is normal if you let yourself overwrite in the first draft. Don’t be afraid to cut chunks of text if they don’t add value. That’s value for the reader, by the way—not value for the writer.

Find the nothingburgers and just delete them. You don’t need to condense them or replace them with anything. They add nothing so deleting them removes nothing.

Exercise Your Brevity

Here’s an exercise I sometimes undertake during editing. This is especially useful for editing flash and short fiction, where every word counts and has to work for its keep. I start with my first paragraph and copy it into a clean document. I enter a couple hard returns after each sentence to visually separate them. I turn on track changes to see my progress. 

Then I start removing words, one by one, from the first sentence. If I take the word out and the sentence falls apart, I put that word back in and move to the next word. If I take a word out and the sentence hangs together, I leave that word deleted. I remove as many words as I can and then move to the next sentence. As I’m working through and deleting words, I keep an eye out for “very,” for “going to,” and for -ly adverbs—all the things that might signify a stronger word is needed. When I’m done with that paragraph, I take out my hard returns so the paragraph comes back together and I drop the condensed version (with tracked changes still recorded!) into another document. Repeat with each paragraph until you have a pared-down, concise text.

Does this mean I don’t allow any spare words? No—but it gives me clarity on how and where and why I’m using spare words so I can use them effectively.

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